News

Every week we get an e-mail or two from online readers begging for a state-of-the-art set of searchable weblinks on the Stereophile website. Starting this week, your e-prayers have been answered. The Stereophile website now sports one of the Internet's most comprehensive set of qualified audio and video links---as of last count, they number more than 2500. The database is searchable in a variety of ways, and also groups similar categories.

Toronto-based Lenbrook Group announced earlier this month that it had acquired NAD Electronics from AudioNord International, a Scandinavian organization that has owned the brand for most of this decade. The deal is expected to close next week, on May 3. Lenbrook will take over NAD's worldwide marketing and distributorship, but AudioNord will continue to market the brand in Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Scandinavia. Other joint marketing ventures will follow, according to Lenbrook's public relations agent.

We posted an updatehttp://www.stereophile.com/news/10415/">update; on Peter Belt and his activities earlier in the month, but the saga began many moons ago. If you're curious about where it all began, or just need to know more, then J. Gordon Holt's "L'Affaire">http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/110/">L'Affaire Belt" is for you. Stranger than fiction? Guaranteed.

In an aggressive move into the used audio equipment market, New York retailer Harvey">http://www.harveyonline.com">Harvey Electronics announced last week that the company will begin to sell used audio products and special purchases of new merchandise on eBayhttp://www.ebay.com">eBay;, an online auction site, beginning June 1, 1999. The company also recently announced that it will sell merchandise through other website partnerships.

There's gold in them digital music hills. This obvious reality---supported by the music industry's near-panic in the face of the phenomenal growth of MP3 in the past year---was reinforced last week, when Sony">http://www.sony.com/">Sony Corporation and International">http://www.ibm.com/">International Business Machines announced a digital music mutual-aid pact at a press conference in Los Angeles.

Last week, RealNetworkshttp://www.real.com">RealNetworks; announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Xing">http://www.xing-tech.com">Xing Technology, a developer and provider of MP3 software. Xing has been developing standards-based digital audio and video encoding and decoding technology since 1990, but eventually ran into trouble competing with other Internet-audio startups such as RealNetworks and Liquid Audio.

Cambridge, England's Meridian">http://www.meridian.co.uk/">Meridian Ltd. has been making digital active (or self-powered) loudspeakers since 1990. Regarded as the best among the very few companies to offer such a product, Meridian has taken the concept to a new level by introducing three DSP-series loudspeakers with 24-bit/96kHz capability: the DSP6000, DSP5500, and DSP5000---all bearing the 96/24 suffix to distinguish them from their lower-resolution predecessors. Meridian introduced two 96kHz-capable subwoofers, the DSW1500 and DSW2500, at the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show.